US sees Europe as a continent that opposes everything they hold dear

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently declared that the “Pax Americana” in which the United States guaranteed European security is over. He’s right, but he’s wrong to declare that it’s possible for Europe to defend its own interests because there is no European political entity capable of doing so.

The “Pax Americana” that Merz rightly says will not return arose for two reasons: America’s economic dominance and a combination of shared interests and values between it and the rest of the world. Neither fact still applies.

America once stood alone at the top of global GDP table. In 1960, for example, its GDP was as large as the next seven nations combined. This supremacy lasted throughout the Cold War. Even as late as 1980, the US -produced more than or roughly as much as the next two nations combined even on a PPP basis.

Europe and America’s Pacific allies shared most values and interests. All were threatened by the Soviet Union, the world’s second largest economy. They also were democratically governed and mostly had traditional social mores. They differed on some matters, especially in how much the government should steer the economy, but the differences paled in comparison to what they shared.

Today, the United States faces an adversary in China whose economy on a PPP basis is larger than its own. The rise of other nations outside the Cold War Western alliance means that those powers combined now produce less than half of the world’s GDP by PPP. The West, much less the United States alone, can no longer simply dictate global affairs.

Shared values and interests have also dissipated. European nations feel directly threatened by Russia, as they should. But the Russian Federation is a shadow of the former Soviet Union and is more an irritant than a threat to America.

China, on the other hand, directly threatens American interests in a way that does not affect Europe. China’s ambitions in the Western Pacific, and its military build up to facilitate those desires, puts American domination of the Pacific in question. Given that sheer volume of trade that flows in and through that region, losing that position would be catastrophic for America.

Europe is only now waking up to the fact that China’s ambitions threaten what they value, economic growth. Germany’s economy, for example, depends on profits from its Chinese investments. 

However, much as with its bet on Russian gas and oil, that interdependence works against German national interest. China values its leverage over international affairs more than it does the wealth it can gain from peaceful trade. That makes European nations vulnerable to economic coercion, but no European nation currently has its core interests threated militarily.

America’s national culture, especially among those who vote for Republican candidates, has also veered sharply from those of Europe. Europe is largely a secular nation and has seemingly adopted progressive greenness as its new religion. America’s Republicans, however, remain more similar in beliefs to their parents and grandparents than to anything found in Europe.

That’s what the new American security statement makes crystal clear. European paeans to “shared values” fall on deaf Republican ears because they see a continent that largely opposes everything they hold dear. The new statement essentially offers a sharp warning: If you can’t move closer to us in values, don’t expect us to die for your freedom.

Merz thus correctly diagnoses the problem. The difficulty is that responding requires a united effort. The European Union as currently designed is utterly incapable of meeting the challenge.

The EU tries to have the benefits of federation and of independent nation states at the same time but fails in both regards. The Union is too loose in terms of defence and foreign affairs as there is no common military and no central taxation ability that would finance such an endeavour. At the same time, it constricts nation states’ ability to govern their own polities through its opaque combination of subsidy, economic regulation, and the European Court of Human Rights.

A strong Europe needs a common foreign and military policy while allowing the very different nation states to govern their own affairs, especially on social matters. The current arrangement has it completely backwards.

This means Merz must work toward his goal with insufficient means to accomplish it.

The best path forward for Europe would be to resolve this conundrum by recasting the EU’s structure, making it stronger internationally, more democratically accountable, and less domestically constricting. That’s as likely as it for Xi Jinping to leave office after free and fair elections.

Europe’s future, then, rests on Merz’s ability to persuade enough other European leaders to make the necessary national sacrifices to work in common. One can hope he succeeds, but one should not bet heavily in his favour.